The Wildrose is beginning candidate nominations for the next provincial election in 2019 despite potential talks on uniting with the Progressive Conservatives and an ongoing electoral boundary review.

Wildrose party executive director Jeremy Nixon confirmed Monday that at the request of the local constituency association, the party had last week opened the nomination process in Chestermere-Rocky View, a seat currently held by the Wildrose’s Leela Aheer.

A nomination meeting is scheduled for Feb. 25.

“We need to get through 87 nominations and so, we’re going to make sure all of our 87 candidates are in place before the next election so they can get on the ground, and campaign and introduce themselves to their communities,” said Nixon, adding that this would be the first in a series nominations that would be done over the next year-and-a-half.

Wildrose Leader Brian Jean said last week that members of his party want him to pursue unity with the Progressive Conservatives and, if an agreement can be reached, he is prepared to stand down as leader of Wildrose and run for the top job in a new united party.

Negotiations between the Wildrose and PCs would be predicated on Jason Kenney — the sole Tory leadership candidate running on a platform of merging the two parties — emerging victorious at the party’s convention on March 18.

Nixon said in a statement that if an agreement is approved by the members of each party, “we would expect the issue of completed nominations to be revisited at that time.”

The province’s electoral boundaries commission is currently holding hearings. It will issue a preliminary report in May and a final report in October on how Alberta’s 87 seats should be redistributed and riding borders redrawn.

But Nixon said it’s not unprecedented for parties to begin their work before the boundaries commission completes is done.

“If there are any major changes to the boundaries when the commission is done its work, any outstanding issues will be addressed,” he said.

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